


Wouldn't It Be Nice

by GreenWool



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: A Series of Fortunate Events, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternature Universe- Everything Is Ok And Nobody Choked Katniss, Especially Not Peeta, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenWool/pseuds/GreenWool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the happy endings Katniss and Peeta could have gotten, but didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wouldn't It Be Nice

**Author's Note:**

> DELETED CANNON SCENE: The window scene in THG. Peeta never says he doesn’t want the Games to change him, so Snow never gets the idea to hijack him in the first place.

“They’re back.”

The words ricochet through my head until they clang hollow and meaningless against the back of my skull, and it isn’t until Haymitch says it again that they make any sense to me. Finnick was the one who told me that it took ten times longer to put yourself back together as it did to fall apart, and I wonder if he knew, even then, that that’s what we were both doing. Falling apart at the seams because the thread that held us together was being dragged out of us so slowly that we felt every torturous, slippery inch. He knew as well as I did that only Peeta- alive, whole and real- could suture me shut, because that’s how he felt about Annie.

There is a part of me that knows that there is no way that I will get everything on that list. I’ve already seen that it’s not true. But I don’t care. I want it anyway, and maybe I am setting myself up to fall apart like Finnick told me not to, but I can’t help it. Peeta’s name leaps out of my mouth before I can catch it behind my hands. It doesn’t matter though, because only Haymitch is there to see it happen and if there is anyone who knows- anyone who understands what it’s like to lose Peeta- it’s him.

“Now don’t get too excited,” Haymitch says. It’s too late for that. I am already rising on shaking legs and the closet I’ve been hiding in is suddenly too small to hold me any longer.

“He’s here?”

“Yes, but Katniss-,” Haymitch sighs heavily.

I don’t need to hear any more about it. Everything else is just details, and I’ve never been good at caring about those anyway. I ignore Haymitch as he wraps his hands around my shoulders to hold me back and he tries to tell me that I might not recognize Peeta, that he’s not in good shape, that I should slow down. I wrench out of Haymitch’s grip and take off down the hall, determined not to slow down for anyone, Haymitch least of all.

Haymitch’s voice and the hurried, unsteady plod of his feet echo behind me, but I am deaf to everything but the roar of pumping blood in my head. What will I say to Peeta when I see him? What should I say? It probably doesn’t matter. Peeta won’t want to hear me mumble something clumsy, he’ll want to kiss me. Will it feel like it did in the arena? A thrill shivers through me at the thought of that kiss- one that hasn’t truly left my mind since it happened. I take a sharp corner and collide with someone, then spin away and keep on running until I slam through the swinging doors into the hospital wing. It’s a mess, the most chaotic I’ve ever seen it, even counting the bombing that destroyed so much of Thirteen. People rush from and to every direction, and now I’m one of them, spinning and darting to try to find someone, anyone, who can tell me where Peeta is.

Of course it’s Gale who finds me. He is propped against a wall and breathing heavily when he calls my name. I want to throw my arms around him, but I am so scared I’ll just hurt him further that my arms hang leaden at my sides. I’ve never seen Gale this fragile- hunched forward with his eyes screwed shut and his arms wrapped tight around his chest. No matter how hard he breathes he doesn’t ever seem to be getting enough air, and then I see why through the gaping front of his uniform. Huge black bruises dot his chest, and several cuts have already been stitched back together. I want to ask what happened, but I don’t really want to know.

“Gale-,” I rasp. His head tilts up and despite it all, he gives me a small smile that wavers so much my heart breaks a little.

“Katniss,” he says. “We got him.”

My lip quivers as I breath a thank you, and I move to brush a strand of hair out of his face. Gale jerks back at the last second, so I am left with my hand hanging midair, fingers twitching uselessly. His eyes cut a path toward a hallway to our left.

“Well, what are you waiting for?,” he says. “He’s down at the end over there.”

“Gale, I-”

“Don’t. Don’t say whatever it is that you’re about to. You’re only saying it because I look like this,” he says, as he motions at his chest.

“No, I’m not, I-”

Gale wheezes, and I can’t tell if it’s pain or laughter.

“You only ever see me when I’m in pain,” he says. “Is that what I need to do to keep your attention? Keep hurting myself?”

I want to deny it. I want to tell him he’s wrong, or it’s not true. That I’m not like that. But then I remember how I kissed him in Twelve, and how he said the exact same thing then, and I really do wonder if it is true and everyone can see it but me. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who only knows how to love a boy when he’s in pain.

“I won’t ever be enough on my own, will I?,” he says. It’s not true. Gale has always been enough for me. We have shared so much pain between the two of us, so much misery and hunger, and Gale had always been what I needed. But that was then, before the Games, before the Quell, and the war and the bombing of Twelve, and everything is so different now. I know that I need Gale, but not like I need Peeta, and I can’t rightly say why or how. And then I’m silent for too long, and it’s as good as a confession as far as Gale is concerned.

He pushes off the wall. “Just go. I got him for you. Don’t worry about me. I’ll survive this.”

I don’t know if he means me or his injuries, but either way the words slice right through me. Even now, after everything, Gale knows me better than I know myself, so it hurts all the more when he turns his back to me and limps toward the door, narrowly avoiding the green- scrubbed nurses that dart from room to room. I look down to the end of the hall where Gale said Peeta was and catch a glimpse of Madge, her loose hospital gown hanging around her bony shoulders like a veil. Her gaze darts around the confusion, but as I start down the hall toward her, she starts toward me. I rush toward and then past her, our eyes only locking for a split second. But her eyes- they’re alive again. I think of the way she came here- shell-shocked and unspeaking- and I realize now that this is the first time I’ve seen her leave her hospital room since the bombing. But Madge and her wide-eyed stare is forgotten as I come to the door that separates me from Peeta. My hand hovers over the knob, but my need to see him is stronger than my fear and I have no other choice than to jerk it open.

There are nurses everywhere, rushing around a person I almost don’t recognize. Almost. But I do. I know those shoulders- those arms that have given me so much comfort when nothing else could. I’d have to be dead not to remember them, and maybe not even then. I say his name, but it comes out silent because there’s no air left inside me. I take a few steps forward, and the nurses around me pause and gape, as if they could possibly know what it means to me that Peeta is here. He turns, slowly, and what’s left of my strength crashes and shatters at my feet.

In my wildest nightmares I never could have imagined this. He is horrifyingly thin, and his eyes bulge large and wet out of the dark skin around his eyes. Something is wrong with his nose. It looks broken, but I can’t be sure because it’s not as swollen as it should be, though it’s definitely crooked. His hair is shaved right to the bone-white skin, with only a thin brush of blonde stubble so pale you could hardly see it. He stares at me as if I’m either a cruel hallucination or his sweetest dream, and the idea that he can’t bring himself to hope I’m real launches me into his arms.

The world slows as they close around me. Even skinny and malnourished Peeta is still so strong, and I’m glad because I need him to hold me like he won’t let go. And he doesn’t, even when the nurses try to separate us, and I refuse to let them drag me away from him either. Eventually Haymitch turns up and gets them leave us alone. Peeta must be hooked to every machine in here already, and I am too impatient to have him all to myself to let them stick him with needles any longer.

From the moment I curled myself into his arms Peeta has been crying, his face pressed against my neck. Little silent sobs shudder through him like he’s coughing or panting, but I know better. I can hear the catching in his throat and feel the tears that scald my skin and leak from neck down to the rough cotton collar of my grey jumpsuit. I keep trying to brush away curls of blonde hair that aren’t there anymore, so my fingers just slide over the skin of his scalp. I let them run down his neck to his back, where I can count the ribs under my fingers, and all of a sudden those kisses I want from him seem so foolish that I am ashamed of all the things it made me feel to think of them.

“I thought I would never see you again,” he chokes out when we are finally alone. “They told me you were dead.”

“I’m much harder to kill than that,” I say, and my lips pinch. Now is not the time to cry. Not even if the heartbreak in his voice rattles some forgotten part of me loose and I am breaking down right here in his arms. He laughs, a wheezing, tortured sound, and I make him lie back because it scares me so bad. What have they done to him? I lie next to him, tuck my head over his and wrap my arms around a body that should be much warmer than it is. At least, that’s how I remember it. Warm. Solid.

I drag a blanket over us and pull him close again. I don’t know what the Capitol has done to him. Why he moves like it hurts to even breathe. Why his nose is messed up. Why his eyes are so glassy. But I do know that whatever it was they tried, it failed.

“This- you- it’s real, right?,” he asks brokenly. “I dreamed of you so often…”

My arms tighten around him.

“I’m here,” I say. “This is real.”

He lets out a long, ragged sigh and goes limp in my arms. I trace my fingertips down his bare back for hours as he sleeps fitfully and I refuse to let anyone else touch him- even the nurses. There will be tomorrow for answers, but tonight I don’t care at all about anything but Peeta’s steady breathing against my neck and his heartbeat under my palm. Peeta survived. He’s here, and it was his strength that brought him back to me, so I say a quiet thanks into the still air and close my eyes.


End file.
